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George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

electrek.co

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Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#251

Post by akamaka »

jdonaldson wrote: post #150
BurningFrog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the letter, it's a lot more than "answering a few questions". He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product, I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error, interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it.

Yeah, the extremely short timeline here combined with excessive fines puts this squarely in "F-You" territory.

I agree that the fines are set at a level more appropriate for a large corporation, but I looked at the questions, and they're all things I would want to know as a customer, and I would expect for them to mostly already know (e.g. "What weather conditions have you tested this in?").

There's only one question which could be considered too broad, which is compliance with safety standards, but it's generously worded as a yes or no question. He could simply answer "no, I haven't analyzed my product against against the safety standards".

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#252

Post by smallnamespace »

wyager wrote: post #232
Oletros wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two weeks are totally reasonable. If you intend to sell the thing in less than two months, that information should already be ready

Why would you have all the random crap the NHTSA demanded ready to go if this wasn't a pre-existing regulation?

What's random about it? It's basically:

- What's in the installation + operating manual? - Items 1-3

- Is it safe? Did you do testing? How? Items 4-6

- What vehicles does it work on? What happens if you screw up during installation? Items 7-8

- What happens if an owner screws up and puts in an unsupported car? Item 9

- Did you think about whether this keeps the car compliant with other safety regulations? In particular, did you think about the legality of blocking/removing the mirror? Did you do testing? Items 10-12

- When are you selling/shipping it? Items 13-14

- Anything else you want us to know? Item 15

Every single item is a completely reasonable question to ask. I'd certainly hope comma.ai knew the answer to each of these questions before they sold it to the public.

Again, if 2 weeks wasn't enough time, then negotiate with them and give them what you have. Threats of daily fines are often boilerplate that get tacked on to ensure that people take the request seriously; I'd challenge anyone to find an example where the regulatee cooperated with the regulator in good faith and still got fined for not responding.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#253

Post by ChuckMcM »

phasmantistes wrote: post #223

I love this paragraph of the Request: > The singular includes the plural; the plural includes the singular. The masculine gender includes the feminine and neuter genders; and the neuter gender includes the masculine and feminine genders. "And" as well as "or" shall be construed either disjunctively or conjunctively, to bring within scope of this Special Order all responses that might otherwise be construed to be outs…

Yup, that is the "don't try to wiggle out of this with some thin reasoning about scope" paragraph.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#254

Post by module0000 »

smallnamespace wrote: post #165
BurningFrog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the letter, it's a lot more than "answering a few questions". He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product, I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error, interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it.

> He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product Which either he should have readily available, since he's the creator, or he should have known, since he should be able to demonstrate the safety of the device. > I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error Usually you hand over what you have, then you negotiate with the regulator for a time fram…

> The correct response is not to throw a tantrum and shut everything down.

I think the correct response is to work with them 110%. Having that government body happy with you isn't a bad thing - you could become the reference spec for self-driving if you please them to an appropriate degree.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#255

Post by kefka »

scott_s wrote: post #160
BurningFrog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the letter, it's a lot more than "answering a few questions". He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product, I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error, interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it.

I don't see a problem with that. In fact, I want government regulators to do that. He should have anticipated this process, and been working with them since the beginning.

With that kind of talk, only those "well connected" can readily do that.

Hmm. Regulatory capture? Yeah. That.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#256

Post by WhitneyLand »

throwaway729 wrote: post #212
WhitneyLand wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 10,000 people were killed on the way to making driverless cars safe, and this wild west approach ended up getting them into mass market use a few years earlier, it would save the lives of thousands of people overall. Is this a bad thing? Is it not justified by utilitarianism?

> If 10,000 people were killed on the way to making driverless cars safe, and this wild west approach ended up getting them into mass market use a few years earlier, it would save the lives of thousands of people overall. This is a perfect example of the biggest and IMO most compelling critique of utilitarianism -- namely, that it's too susceptible to bullshitting. People decide what they want to do, then completely…

Lots of things are susceptible to misuse. That doesn't invalidate them unless they are in fact misused.

Moreover I don't see how you can conclude on a whim what's possible to estimate and what is not. Given these things take expertise in the relevant field and more than just casual analysis.

Finally, it's not like there is a small margin of error. Can you even really comprehend 30,000 deaths every single year caused by conventional cars and drivers? This is fricking 9/11 times ten happening every year, and you're not even willing to consider that speeding up r&d might save a few lives?

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#257

Post by patio11 »

ceterum_censeo wrote: post #246
patio11 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your estimate of the required detail? Mine is 100,000 pages. Is your estimate, I don't know, only 100 pages or so? Look at their definition of the word "describe." This letter is designed to kill the company. That is a result I support, but, the people saying "This letter is designed to kill the company" are entirely correct.

The documentation that the NHTSA is requesting are things that would already exist for a properly designed product. They are not asking for it to be generated de novo (and in fact, it cannot be done in that manner if they are operating under a proper design process). This letter is designed to give pause to (e: previously I wrote "kill") a company operating with complete disregard for proper operations in a regulated…

This letter is designed to kill a company operating with complete disregard for proper operations in a regulated industry.

We are in entire agreement, but people cannot believe in the superposition of this and "Oh that's just some simple questions from the regulator."

Edit to add: Quoted bit appears to have changed after my quote. I think the old version remains accurate.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#258

Post by saosebastiao »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #180
abduhl wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As you are undoubtedly aware, there is a high likelihood that some drivers will use your product in a manner that exceeds its intended purpose." The government appears well aware of this hand waving garbage that companies are trying with "it isn't really autopilot, keep your hands on the wheel wink ." This is exactly government's job and is a fabulous example of a government reacting to ongoing events that have prov…

Proof that so-called autopilot systems are a danger to the public would be evidence that they perform worse than the average driver. I haven't seen such evidence, what are you referencing?

When you measure the safety of autonomous cars by counting the miles they travel, and not counting the miles that they intentionally avoid or defer to a human, you have succeeded in creating a metric that looks like it's useful for comparison, but is actually completely meaningless. It's like measuring typing speed while ignoring typos.

Until autonomous vehicles are subject to the full spectrum of conditions that human drivers face, incidents/mile is not a meaningful measure of comparative safety. And until then, the burden of proof should be on the creators.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#259

Post by ryanmarsh »

abduhl wrote: post #144
hartator wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel $21,000 fine per day sounds pretty like "we want to shut you down". He never presented comma.ai as an autopilot but as a very smart line assist and adaptive cruise control.

"As you are undoubtedly aware, there is a high likelihood that some drivers will use your product in a manner that exceeds its intended purpose." The government appears well aware of this hand waving garbage that companies are trying with "it isn't really autopilot, keep your hands on the wheel wink ." This is exactly government's job and is a fabulous example of a government reacting to ongoing events that have prov…

Yes. There are a number of federal agencies that are a shit-show at best but I can't remember a time in my adult life when I was disappointed in NHTSA.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#260

Post by smallnamespace »

kefka wrote: post #255
scott_s wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a problem with that. In fact, I want government regulators to do that. He should have anticipated this process, and been working with them since the beginning.

With that kind of talk, only those "well connected" can readily do that. Hmm. Regulatory capture? Yeah. That.

If by 'well-connected', you mean people who have the means and resources to properly test their products, then I agree.
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